


end of the world, mate

by Skyuni123



Series: Brokenwood Fic Week, Feb 2018 [4]
Category: The Brokenwood Mysteries
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, End of the World, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Survival, i've been playing too much fallout lately and this is what happens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-12 02:53:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13538157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyuni123/pseuds/Skyuni123
Summary: Three souls, a crumbling overpass and the biggest crop of weed in the New World.(a dystopia au. make of that what you will.)(day 4 of brokewoodfanpage'sfic week!





	end of the world, mate

_ Brokenwood  _ is an overpass. It’s derelict, rusty, but high enough above the flooding below to ensure the safety of its occupants.

 

Perhaps the road below was once called Brokenwood Avenue.

It doesn’t matter now.

 

All the sign says is  _ Brokenwood _ , and  _ Brokenwood  _ is their home.

  
  


There’s two of them - a strange little family. Before the world flooded, before everything ended, she was a receptionist, he an IT consultant. They knew each other from school, weren’t friends, and were only coincidentally in a car together when the waves burst forth and swallowed their city whole.

There had been others, at first.

There aren’t others any more.

  
  


Now there’s only them,  a rusty overpass and the biggest crop of weed in the New World.

 

(The weed had been an accident.)

(Honestly.)

  
  


Stranded on the top of an overpass with only meager items from nearby high-rises for company leaves a lot to be desired.

Watching some of those high rises topple under the weight of all that water does as well. 

One has to find something to do, and growing crops is one of the ways to do it. They’d started with flowers, vegetables, anything they could scavenge from kitchens nearby.

But then he’d noticed one particular plant they  _ hadn’t  _ planted and things had spiraled from there. 

 

Now, two years in, it’s basically their livelihood. 

  
  


Sam Breen leans down for another shovel of dirt and narrowly misses cutting his foot open as the spade cleanly breaks into two pieces.

Balls. 

 

He drops what is left of the spade, wipes a sweaty hand over his forehead and swears loudly and prolongedly for at least thirty seconds. 

 

Kristen pokes her head out of their shack and says, “are you trying to alert every raider in the area to our presence, or are you just being loud for no reason?”

“Broke the spade.” He sighs, “Again.”

“Shit.”

 

They get traders through, sometimes. Absolute legends in canoes loaded with bits and pieces from the Old World. They’ll just have to use other tools until they can get a new spade.

(Or Sam will have to fix it  _ again _ with duct tape. Which worked so well last time.)

 

Sometimes he really misses online shopping. 

  
  


They’re lying together in bed later that night. There’s nothing between them, never has been, but there’s something nice about having a warm body next to you when the rest of the world is silent and dark. Gunfire crackles in the distance, an abrupt reminder of the world they're living in now. 

 

“I was thinking about heading up to Riverstone in the next few days.” Kristen says, staring up at the patched metal of their ceiling. “Taking some of our stock up, getting a new spade and some other things.”

“We don’t have a boat.” It’s a dumb idea, and he knows she knows it. Being stuck on a piece of land that’s barely a third of a k long is bad, sometimes, but the water is worse. “You can’t swim it. You’ll get sick.”

 

The water is  _ bad.  _ There’s no tide movement any more, not really, so most of it just sits there, stagnating. They’re only able to grow crops because of their water purifier and the occasional shower of rain.

 

“I just want to do something. I want a change. Being here is…” She doesn’t finish her sentence, but he knows what she means.

 

Stagnant. Exhausting. Claustrophobic. 

 

At least they’re not dead.

“Just… wait till Jared comes around again, eh? Go with him then. It’s better. Please, Kris.”

 

“I guess.” She doesn’t sound happy about it, but she doesn’t argue.

 

There’s a shuffling sound outside which freezes both of them in the dark. There’s not many land animals any more, birds don’t tend to hang around at night, and any people who know better would come during the day.

 

“Raiders?” Sam asks, his voice a low hum in the dark.

 

In the gloom he can just see her nod. She rolls onto her side and grabs the wooden clubs they have for just these occurrences. 

“On three.” She hisses, and passes him one.

 

“3… 2… 1!”

 

They both spring out of bed, stumble through the door and out onto the overpass, clubs held high.

 

But the expected raider ambush isn’t there.

Instead there’s just one man, sopping wet and delirious, who collapses to his knees when he sees them. “I would appreciate it if you didn’t kill me.” He croaks, and falls flat on his face in a dead faint. 

 

Well. This is definitely a  _ change. _

  
  


Together they manage to lift the man into their shack. He’s probably mid-40s with salt-and-pepper hair, but his skin is marred and lanced with scars. 

 

He’s bleeding too, from a long slice down his arm and a hole on his forehead. 

 

It’s like  _ nothing  _ they’ve seen before. Raiders don’t tend to wound people, just go straight for the kill. They’re all scarred from the floodlands, of course, but not to this extent. It’s weird. 

 

The things Sam would do for the internet right now…

Or hell, even a book.

 

Kristen does her best to dress the man’s wounds in the faint light of their one remaining torch, then they strip him down to his pants and cover him with one of their scavenged blankets. It’s got holes in it, but it’s the best they’ve got.

They huddle together and wait for dawn. The man doesn’t seem like a raider, and at this point, they really don’t have any other option. 

  
  


The man wakes just after the sun rises, and panics for a moment. By the time he seems to realise that they’re not actually a threat, his features have settled into something resembling calm. It’s obvious, though, from the suspicious look in his eyes, that he doesn’t quite trust them yet.

 

“Thanks for not killing me.” He says, voice raspy and pained. “I appreciate it. Mike Shepherd.”

He looks like he’s about to offer a hand, but decides against it. He just pulls the blanket tighter around himself instead and looks at them warily.

 

“Kristen.” Kris says, and sits down on the floor opposite him. 

“And I’m Sam.” Breen says, and sits down as well.

 

“Do you mind telling me where I am? It’s been a… long few weeks.” 

 

“Brokenwood.” Kris says, before he can answer. “South of Riverstone, north of East Island. Where are you from?”

Mike swallows. “My wif- my ex-wife and I were taken from East Island.” He turns away, pulls the blanket tighter around himself and doesn’t talk about it.

 

They don’t pry. Some things are better left unspoken. 

  
  


Later, once they’ve all had breakfast - fried seagull eggs, tomatoes and greens - they go out to the edge of the ‘pass. One end droops down into the water steeply, the other continues in increasingly bedraggled lengths until it just falls away entirely.

They sit, legs dangling off the edge of the ‘pass, and look over the water below. Mike settles down gingerly, looking fragile, and grips tightly onto the edge with both hands.

 

“Surprised you made it up here.” Sam says, actually mildly impressed. The end of the ‘pass is very steep. “‘Specially in the middle of the night.”

“Yes, well… I saw your light, and I had nowhere else to go.” Mike replies, not looking too happy about it. “The water… isn’t good.”

“It’s not.” Sam can agree with him there.

 

“Well, it’ll be good to have you around.” Kristen says, bruskly, very much not for pleasantries. “Another hand to work the farm will be nice.”

 

“You’re letting me stay?” Mike croaks, suddenly sounding so,  _ so  _ fragile. 

 

Sam doesn’t even want to think about what could have happened to him. In these waters? ‘Taken’? The stumble on 'wife'? The whole thing adds up to something very, very bad. “End of the world, mate, we have to make do.”

 

And so they do.

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> hit me up on [ tumblr ](http://villainousfilmmaker.tumblr.com)


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